A/N : Sorry about the lack of updates, but I've just finished sitting for my first-term examinations at school! Argh – unlike Oliver, who's completely failed his Potions and History of Magic papers, I get the feeling I've completely screwed over my Geography paper. Dammit. Also, if anyone was wondering or confused by the story's timeline, this is set during Oliver and Katie's seventh year (Adelene, Angelina and Alicia Spinnet's seventh year as well) which would be during the third Harry Potter book. However, please note that I am NOT following along with the events that actually happened in the third book e.g. Quidditch matches, Dementors and stuff – this is just the timeline of the story. Comprehendo? Okay, here's the chapter – please R&R, and ask your friends to read this as well!

Disclaimer : It's kind of understood, right?

Chapter Two : Sanitation Engineers And Garbage Men Are One And The Same

I was sitting down with my usual clique – Lene, Angelina, Fred and George - the next morning as we all ate our breakfast ravenously.

Well, Angelina, Fred and George were eating breakfast ravenously.

I was keeping myself busy swirling the food on my plate around and Lene wasn't eating at all. I knew why, too. You couldn't expect me to not know why when she kept me, Angie and Alicia up all night moaning about how she could feel all the fat she had consumed at the welcome back feast  settling in her stomach.

Ugh.

It was all I could do to refrain from having my face fall face-down into Angie's huge, golden bowl of cereal next to me.

About that, aren't they afraid the milk will rust the gold or anything? I don't see why the school has to waste good money on buying golden crockery when it could spend it on much better uses – like paying for REAL tutors to come in and tutor the weaker students.

Then maybe I wouldn't have to tutor OLIVER FRANSISCO WOOD, ESQUIRE!

I still can't believe it. Lene couldn't stop laughing last night when I told her and Angie about this whole arrangement (what else is new?). Even Angelina was laughing, though. You could have sworn I had actually said something remotely funny.

Why does Oliver have to be so stupid??

I suppose that's rather mean of me, but you can hardly blame me. If he hadn't done so badly in his final examinations last year, I never would have had to go through all this trauma.

Because that's what this is!

Trauma!

Severe emotional trauma!

I will probably be put into a mental institution when I'm like fifty because of an after-effect of all this happening to me!

And it will all be Oliver's fault.

The bloody bastard.

All this thinking is probably what made me go, "I will NEVER have your children," when Oliver sat down across from me.

He looked at me in surprise.

"I beg your pardon??"

Look at him, pretending he doesn't know what I'm talking about.

The rest had stopped their talking and eating, staring at Oliver and I with an avid and extremely obvious interest.

I narrowed my eyes at Oliver, and prepared myself to deliver a very cool line that would leave him reeling in awe and shame in not having done better in his exams.

"If you were my dog, I wouldn't feed you!"

Oh, wonderful.

Lene gave me a look that plainly said "You do know you're insane, right?" and I shot back a "Well you're the one who laughs until the Hippogriffs come home!" look, which she responded to by shrugging and flipping her hair.

Oliver shook his head. "You can do better than that, Miss Smarty Arse."

My eyes widened.  "What was that, Wood?" I demanded.

Oh, shit.

I suppose it was my fault that he gave me The Look and said, "Nothing," smugly.

I just hate that look!!

I would have delivered yet another super-smooth insult if Angie hadn't laid a warning hand on my arm, and I swallowed back a shout of, "Eat dirt, Quidditch boi!"

"Anyway, Bell, I'm here to work out our tutoring schedule, and after that I want to talk to you four –" he glanced briefly at Fred, George and Angelina, "about Quidditch practices this year."

Fred and George immediately made a show of trying to get as far away from Oliver as possible (which, sadly, did not really work as he was sitting right next to them), and this ended in them toppling off the bench and onto the stone floor.

Ouch.

While a few Hufflepuff boys got up to help Fred and George, Oliver turned his attention back to me.

"So, when would be good for you, ma'am?" he teased.

Lene choked and burst into laughter, spraying pumpkin juice everywhere.

"Lenie!" Hermione Granger, a bookish third-year girl, screamed as a huge gob of pumpkin juice landed with a splat on a page of her open book.

"What is with guys calling you ma'am?" Lene shrieked in mirth, as tears began to run down her rosy cheeks.

George was looking at her fondly, with a sort of dreamy look on his face. It was pretty sweet, you know.

"I was only joking!" Oliver exclaimed, looking at Lene with a look of bewilderment.

I waved at him to get his attention.

"Forget it, Oliver. It happens all the time. Look, back to the subject at hand, I'm supposed to tutor you for Potions and History of Magic for five hours per week, per subject – is that right?"

Oliver nodded in agreement.

"Well, I suppose that would be...two hours a day, an hour for each subject," I told him, calculating out everything in my head.

"Five days a week, then? That works out perfectly with our Quidditch schedule. Which brings me to what I wanted to talk to everyone about – practices this year will be on Mondays – today included, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. You can tutor me after practices, then."

Five practices a week so early in the year? Merlin, and we thought he couldn't get any worse.

"Oliver, five times a week? Are you insane?" Angelina, who had been listening to our conversation, protested.

Oliver shrugged.

"Ask McGonagall. It's not like I was begging to be tutored by Miss Smarty Arse here."

Before I could say anything in my defense, Fred, who had already sat himself back down again, whacked him on the shoulder. "Not the tutoring, the Quidditch practice, you dumb git. Today's our first day studying again after an extremely long break of eating, sleeping and putting dog dung in our brother's bed, and you want us to practice already?" Fred said, helping himself to more roast beef sandwiches.

"Look, Fred, this may only be your sixth year, but it's my last. I want to win that ruddy Cup before I leave school," Oliver said forcefully.

"Have we missed a lot?," a soft voice cut in from behind me.

I turned in surprise to see Alicia Spinnet and Harry Potter standing behind me. Oliver must have told them that he wanted to talk to them, too.

Angelina, Lene and I scooted down the bench to make room for the two of them. They sat down next to me to a chorus of "Hello"s and "Hi"s, and a "You smell" from Fred and George.

Harry grinned and shot back, "So do you."

Harry's a cute kid. He's actually this big shot celebrity when it comes to wizardom, but he really doesn't act it. He always hangs out with Fred and George's little brother, Ron, and that Hermione Granger girl.

As for Alicia, she's one of my roommates like Lene and Angie. We do talk to her, but she keeps to herself a lot, and is pretty quiet. She's very pretty, though, and is going out with the Hufflepuff Quidditch team captain, Cedric Diggory – who is A COMPLETE HUNK!!! I have to admit I was rather jealous when she first started seeing him, but so was every single straight girl in the school. This is probably why most guys don't like him very much – I reckon they're just jealous.

Boys being boys.

Sigh.

I have never understood them, and probably never will.

And you know what?

I don't really want to, either.

As Oliver informed Alicia and Harry about our new Quidditch practice schedule, I turned to Lene, who had FINALLY stopped laughing.

"Lene, shall we go?" I asked her, glancing at my watch, which was currently flashing the words "MOVE YO' ASS, MO' FO'!" in bright red neon lights. Fred and George had gotten it for me for Christmas the year before.

Who else, huh?

Lene nodded and got up from the table.

"Angie, we're going. We have Divination now," Lene told Angelina.

Angelina nodded and began eating again, ignoring Oliver's not-so-little speech about Quidditch tactics.

I bet Harry and Alicia were wishing they had never come over right about then.

And I was going to be spending a lot of time alone with this Quidditch freak until the N.E.W.T.S.!

Merlin.

Someone up there didn't like me very much.

My feelings soared, as they always did, as I scored another goal past Oliver.

"Go Katesies, go Katesies," Fred and George chanted and zoomed past me on their broomsticks, tugging slightly on my pleated half-ponytail.

I laughed and winked at Oliver, who had just retrieved the Quaffle from its spot where it had fallen on the ground. "Better luck next time, Orli," I called. "Why, thank you, Bell," he replied with exaggerated graciousness, suddenly throwing the Quaffle to me and nearly knocking me off my broom. I stuck my tongue out at him and flew off again to practice passing with Angelina and Alicia.

"Good one, Katie," Alicia commented as I flew up to them.

I nodded in thanks and we began passing the Quaffle to each other, zigging and zagging all over the pitch.

Practice carried on much as usual until finally, Oliver blew the whistle that was hanging around his neck and motioned for all of us to come down to the pitch. We all landed back on solid ground and walked over to Oliver to hear what he had to yell at us today. Hopefully, he wouldn't be too PMSed. I thought we had flown pretty well that day.

We waited for a few minutes while Harry rounded up the Snitch, and while Fred and George tried to patch up a hole in the stands they had made with a Bludger.

Tsk, tsk, tsk.

How unprofessional – how them.

I'm one to talk, aren't I?

When we were all finally assembled, Oliver shot a quick glare at Fred and George.

"What? It wasn't our fault that one of the Bludgers accidentally decided to fly right into the stands. Bludgers may be balls, but they do have rights, you know," George told Oliver with a straight face.

Oliver shook his head and wisely decided to ignore the twins.

"Practice was good today, people. Potter, great time with the Snitch, and Johnson, work on your passing a bit more. Try not to be so...aggressive. I don't want you fouling anyone during a match like you did in third year."

Oh, yeah. Poor Ravenclaw guy hasn't recovered since. Last I heard, he goes around to people singing about how pretty he is. Courtesy of Miss Angelina Johnson, ladies and gentlemen.

"Bell, that was some nice scoring today, and Spinnet, perfect flying. Your turns have never been sharper. As for you two," he looked pointedly at Fred and George, "please refrain from destroying school property from now on."

Fred and George stared at him with innocent looks on their faces.

"Who, us?" they asked.

Hell, they weren't fooling anybody.

Oliver clapped his hands twice. "Alright, you're dismissed," he informed us, and we immediately began walking towards the changing rooms.

I started walking as well, lost in thought about this new romance novel I had just bought during the summer holidays in America. Just as I was getting extremely dreamy about the hero's supposed six pack, someone tugged on my ponytail from behind me.

I turned around, expecting to see Fred or George because that was their favourite hobby, but to my surprise, saw Oliver standing there instead.

Oh, no.

I had almost forgotten about the tutoring.

"Mind if I join you, Bell?" he asked.

I shrugged (well, I couldn't yell "Up yours, grandpa!", could I?) and the both of us began to walk together.

"So...what shall we start with tonight?" he asked.

Oh, gosh. Was I supposed to know?

At least he wasn't talking about Quidditch again.

"Um...we could start with Potions, I suppose, if that's alright with you." I looked at him for confirmation.

Oliver nodded and said, "Great, Bell."

You know, now that I thought about it, I wondered why this was such a bad thing. What was wrong with tutoring him, anyway? I mean, it would mean more responsibilities and all that – shudder – but other than that, nothing much would change between us.

Right?

Right??

Oh, nuts.

It had to be eleven o'clock.

It had to be.

I looked down at my watch which currently displayed the words "YOU SO WISH" and groaned inwardly.

This stupid session seemed to have lasted forever.

We were now on History Of Magic, and had thankfully gone through that night's Potions lesson, which involved a fifteen-minute long argument with Oliver on whether 'bluebottle wings' and 'wings of a bluebottle' were the same thing.

"And so, in the year of 1544, the local citizens of Humdinger Harbour decided to stage a protest against the Muggle Ambassador To The Wizarding World, Sir Charleston Humpalot IV. The protest was carried through by a few extremely brave wizarding members of society strapping themselves to a batch of Bombadilly Bazookas, that explode upon contact with corrupted Muggle politicians and/or reformed Muggle sanitation engineers, which both applied to The Muggle Ambassador. Bell, what's a sanitation engineer?"

Damn, was he talking to me?

"Sorry?" I asked, feeling rather flustered at being caught not paying attention to him.

He gave me The Look and repeated, "What's a sanitation engineer?"

"A garbage man," I replied.

My God, this guy was daft.

"But what do they have against garbage men?" Oliver asked me.

Was he joking?

"They don't have anything against garbage men."

"Then what do they have against sanitation engineers?"

"They're the same thing, Oliver."

"What, the wizards and sanitation engineers?"

Are you there, God? It's me, Katie.

"No, Oliver. Garbage men and sanitation engineers are the same thing. It just so happened that Sir Charleston Humpalot IV was a corrupted Muggle politician AND a reformed sanitation engineer, so the Humdingers decided to use a Bombadilly Bazooka against him instead of anything else that may not have worked as well. Do you understand?"

Oliver pondered what I said for a minute, biting his lip and frowning like a little boy.

He actually did look rather adorable...

"Okay, so Bombadilly Bazookas have something against Muggle politicians and sanitation engineers?"

Ohmigod.

Did I just think that he was adorable?

I was so wrong.

"NOONE has anything against anyone, Wood! Get that into your head! Just memorize the dates and the facts, alright?" I said, feeling very frustrated. You couldn't blame me, either.

"Alright, alright, Bell...still don't understand what politicians and garbage men have to do with each other, though...this Humpalot guy sounds like a daft little bugger to me...Muggles are weird..." Oliver muttered, going back to his book.

"Hey, I happen to be half-Muggle," I told him defensively.

"And look how you turned out," he responded calmly, raising his eyebrows at me.

Ooooh how I just hate The Look.

"Stop looking at me like that!" I exclaimed and pouted.

Oliver put the book down again and asked, "Looking at you like what, Bell?"

Like that, you senseless buffoon.

"Orli, why do you call me Bell?" I asked instead.

Oliver shrugged. "I'm your Quidditch captain, aren't I? It sounds more professional somehow."

Oh, wow. Great excuse.

"Frankly, it's stupid, Oliver. Be normal and call me Katie."

"Fine, fine, Katie, ma'am," he smirked, giving me The Look again.

It was so freaky the way that stupid, STUPID Look drove me insane.

And he was so lucky Lene wasn't there to hear him call me ma'am.

"Back to your book, Quidditch boy," I ordered, checking my watch again, that now said "I BET YOU HATE ME RIGHT NOW". "Too right I do," I murmured softly, whacking it on the table once for good measure.

"What are you doing?" Oliver asked curiously. He was looking at my watch that was currently displaying the word "OW".

Hah.

Take that, you stupid piece of civilisation.

"Nothing," I quickly replied. I didn't want him to think I was crazier than he already thought I was.

Whoa, wait.

Why do I even care what he thinks about me?

Before I could even begin to ponder that thought properly, the message on my watch suddenly changed to "HOME FREE, YOU LUCKY BITCH!" and I exhaled a sigh of relief.

Ffffffiiiiiiiinnnnnnnaaaaaalllllllllllllllyyyyyyy.

"Time's up, Orli. Let's both get some sleep. Make sure you've memorized the Humpalot Revolution by tomorrow night, you hear me?" I said, getting up from the table and stretching gratefully.

Oliver rolled his eyes.

"Whatever you say, Bell."

"Katie."

"Katie. Katie. Kaaaayyyyyytttteeeeeee. Why, hello, Katie! Hullo, Katie. Greetings, Katie. How do you do, Katie? Sing a song of Katie. Katie had a little lamb. Katie Bell sitting on the old gum tree. Bloody hell that sounds weird."

"Oh, shut up."

A/N : Haha, how was it? Please, please do me the hugest favour and review! Tell me what you want to happen to Oliver and Katie! How fast should I develop their relationship? Any suggestions, comments, even flames are welcomed. I really hope you enjoyed reading that as much as I did writing it ("Sing a song of Katie...")! And if anyone wants to know, yes, I am writing Oliver's character based on His Holiness Sean Biggerstaff. You know The Look that Katie hates so much? I was actually thinking of that look Sean gave in the first movie when he saved the Quaffle. You should know which look I'm talking about. Omg I'm gonna miss him so bad in the 3rd movie! Alright, I'm wasted. Ciao!